London Parley Forms National Council to Promote United Drive for Polish Jews

March 1, 1938

LONDON (Feb. 28)

The first conference of the United Appeal for Jews in Poland and Eastern Europe, with 230 delegates attending, decided today to form a national council authorized to negotiate with all British Jewish organizations, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

The conference received messages of sympathy with the plight of the Jews from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York and others, heard George Lansbury, noted pacifist, explain his plan for a world fund to develop backward countries, and listened to assurances from Commander Oliver Locker-Lampson, Conservative Member of Parliament, that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain would not stand for continued disorders in Palestine.

The message of the Archbishop of Canterbury said: “His Grace is only too well aware of the distressing plight in which Jews in many parts of the world find themselves at the present time and cordially wishes every success to efforts made to alleviate their lot.” Others who sent messages were Lord Cecil, Lord Rothschild and Prof. Selig Brodetsky.

Mr. Lansbury told the conference of his recent tour of Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia, during which he discussed with the respective governments his plan for capitalists, Jewish and Gentile alike, to raise a great fund which would be administered by a League of Nations commission to develop these backward countries. Without a scheme of this nature, he said, millions were fated to die of starvation.

Prime Minister Chamberlain will not stand for continued shooting down of Jews in Palestine, declared Commander Locker-Lampson, a member of the Prime Minister’s party. He asserted that difficulties in Palestine were undoubtedly made greater by propaganda of Chancellor Hitler and Premier Mussolini. Mussolini, he charged, spent L=32,000 (about $160,000) on propaganda in the Near East in the last eighteen months.